Sheils Writes

Just an 80's girl in a modern world!

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60+ mid life ramblings, Scorpio, she/her, former nutmegger, current Floridian, forever dreamer

  • High School Rules

    I started this blog with a lot of unknowns about exactly what I would write about.  I notice a pattern that I enjoy writing about ‘the olden days’ or ‘nostalgia’ topics.  I feel it would be remiss of me to not write about one very integral part of my life, high school.  High school was interesting for lack of a more inspiring word that first comes to mind.  There tends to be a stigma around high school, that they are meant to be four defining development years —  however, for me, they were just, well four years that I learned a good amount of necessary things, I graduated and I guess that chapter closed.  However, sometimes I feel like I never gave it the appropriate closure or contemplation it fully needed.

    At almost 60, what would I tell that 14 year old girl full of so much odd confusion about the next 4 years she’s about to embark upon…

     Top 5 takeaways:

    5.  Being shy is ok.  I was very awkward.  I was quiet.  I kept to myself.  I worked after school at a library.  I went home and did my homework.  This was me and I was perfectly normal yet I didn’t feel that I was.  That I cannot explain, but there it is, written down for closure purposes.

    4.  What you wear doesn’t matter.  Oranically Grown (yes, that was a brand name of jeans I had), Sasson, Jordache, Lee or Levi jeans, corduroys, painters pants and overalls all come to mind.  Clogs, wallabees or tretorn sneakers.  I think I just mixed and matched throughout the week and really life went on around all of this.  I don’t remember too much bad stuff about clothing, yet somehow what we wore mattered somewhere along the line, to this day, just not really sure why.

    3.  Friends are all around you in this building and they are just as much as confused as you are.  My shyness did not help with this.  I had several very close friends from my church group (hi Ann)!  We would pass each other in the halls, do the head nod most likely, move along.  Had I been more open or friendly, who knows if things could’ve been different, however, see #1 above and well, I think I still turned out ok there.

    2.  Look for a sport, group or club.  I did not do a sport.  To this day I wished I was a cheerleader because I was real good at cartwheels in my backyard so I thought I would be a great cheerleader, but again, see #1, I never tried out.  At one point I joined the FBLA, which is known as The Future Business Leaders of America.  I participated in a national steno competition somewhere that I don’t remember.  We went to a hotel and stayed overnight.  I am neither in business nor a leader, but those once in a lifetime memories of being in a steno competition, worth it!  Eventually I joined the Italian Club by way of 2 friends that I had made and we went to Pennsylvania Amish Country, not really sure of the Italian connection here, however we had quite a fun time at an amusement park.  So there you have it.  I really can’t speak more highly of joining a club!

    1.  High school is 4 years.  Life is so much longer.  Have more fun.  Not too much, but enough.  Be sure to order your high school ring so that you can wear it on your pinky finger when you are almost 60.  My advice in this post may be dated or it may still hold true to this day, I do not know, but this is from my experience and I wanted to share it here so that I may have the closure needed to this 4 year chapter in my book of life.

    High School Days

  • Karate Kids!

    Friday night, 1987, life is good for our young couple! Pete is living his best life, taking karate lessons and using sun-in somewhat aggresively. For some of my newbie readers (i.e. born after 1990), sun-in was a hair product, you sprayed it in your hair and you sat in the sun. Pretty straight forward. It didn’t quite make you blonde, but an interesting shade that went well with purple zinc oxide, half t-shirt with no sleeves and super short shorts at any beach or club after dark. While Sheila has received her white belt (pictured) from the famous Wet Seal dojo in the Stamford mall — paired with that beautiful turquoise blue 2-piece jumpsuit, hair was on point with bangs slightly curled under and just the right amount of curling iron curls with a touch of hairspray and mousse. (Not pictured, white, high heeled pumps)!

    Let’s continue our weekend journey — apparently we were one town over in New Canaan, CT at this time, my memory had us 2 hours away in Hartford. Luckily Pete has the better memory, must be from all the karate training. It was tournament weekend! Not anything like those movies (yes, my research for this piece just took me down a rabbit hole, Karate Kid came out in 1984 and Karate Kid II came out in 1986). There were no eagle crane kicks that I can recall. There were kata & kumite competitions, trophies and many trips to the ladies room to touch up my hair. Afterwards, we most likely went to The Bakers Garden, back at the Stamford Mall, for some fine American/Asian cuisine. I would always get the sesame chicken and Pete would order up blackened grilled chicken over fettuccine alfredo, living our best life!

    Karate tournaments, beach, movies in movie theatres and late night drives, listening to cassettes — both sides!

    Sayanora to all and to all a good hair day!

  • A work in progress…

    Trying to get hang of something new, also comes with lots of over thinking. What I do like is that I at least try. Sometimes I may take a very long break because I just don’t think I can do it. I will return because my heart decides I’m really missing what I enjoy. I let my head get hung up on “I’m not good enough”, “I can’t learn this new website”, “No one cares what I have to write about”. Guess what? I know one person that cares and that’s me. Today was just a struggle for me to sign back into my WordPress website, yep, you guessed it, many, many notebooks of searching for a scribbled password and username, sigh, eventually a password reset and I’m back in!

    This may be as far as I get today, but it’s a big step further than the last month and a half. I may not write as often as I’d like, but I do know I’m always thinking about writing, what will my next great post be about? Will anyone care? Will another writer reach out to me and say, “wow, you’re doing great”. Will my sons say “Mom, you inspire me” (that’d be the best one of all). Regardless, the fact that I jumped back in today, I’m happy to just leave it at that for now.

    I hope that if you are reading this and that if you have a dream to do something, that you take the first step, any step, and start.

  • (Miller High) Life, love & the pursuit of not letting age define us

    I can’t help but get slightly reflective on aging…an osteoporosis wake-up call, more aches and pains by the minute, slowing down for the most part…but still occasionally, wait for it … rocking out and staying up until 10 pm, yeah, you read that right!  10 pm!

    So let me combine this Valentines Day/rock & roll post with a shout out to my husband, Pete.  The other night, thanks to him never giving up on his drumming life, we found ourselves out on a weeknight, at an American Legion – and thanks also to a few new friends he’s met since we made our move to Florida.  I generally don’t go, but on this wild Wednesday night I took a chance on having a little fun.

    The writer & Scorpio in me has to observe everything everywhere I go.  What I observed was some really awesome music, several older men (& I mean the term “older” with the utmost respect), playing guitars, drums, bass and belting out some really great tunes.  What I observed was passion, a love for music, friendship, laughs.  What I observed was talent.  What I observed and what I felt was a feeling of being in my 20’s again for a few brief hours, relaxing, having a good time.  I no longer felt like the almost 60 year old lady (who says she feels like 100).  Thank you Pete for this always being a part of our lives.  We may make it into our 90’s (or longer), and somehow I can still see us sitting somewhere, surrounded by music and friends.

    Tonight might be take out hibachi and Publix, but next Wednesday, watch out, we just might get some more Radar Love with a side of Tennessee Whiskey!

     

    Life & love!

  • I don’t like snow & I don’t know why?!

    I get it, it’s pretty??  I guess.  I just don’t know why I personally don’t like it.  My last good memory of a snowfall was in 1985 (there is 1 more very special memory from Christmas 2003 when me, my husband & 2 kids were stranded at my sister’s house on Christmas night,  that was a very special night).  However, before that, winter 1985 I remember taking a walk in a snowfall with my then boyfriend (now husband) & we both thought how romantic, I was 20.

    After that, game over.  I always had to clean off my car.  My car was never in a garage. Then have a white knuckle drive on snow & ice to and/or from work.  Get home & go nowhere. For many evenings sometimes. I didn’t like bundling up.  I don’t ski, snowboard, I don’t build snowpeople or igloos.  I just don’t.

    I wish I could come up with a real why, but just because I don’t like it, I guess.

    Beach, palm trees, sunshine in January, I’m finally enjoying all of that while others are enjoying their snowfalls!  I’ll look at your pictures from my warm front porch. 🌴🏖

    March, yes, March 1975

  • Creativity B.S.M (Before Social Media)

    You know who didn’t have Instagram? TikTok? Threads?

    Leonardo da Vinci didn’t have any of them. Can you picture him posting the Mona Lisa to his Instagram and quitting art because he got only 14 ‘likes’ and 1 comment, that said ‘hey bud, follow for a follow’ – he might’ve quit altogether.

    Any idea how long it took Bram Stoker to write his famous novel, Dracula?  It took him 7 years. He was 50 years old at the time of publication. What if he quit because he was working too many hours as a personal assistant to actor, Sir Henry Irving and business manager of the West End’s Lyceum theatre which Irving owned?  Long days and nights right there. He must’ve wanted to just crawl into bed at the end of his workday with a bottle of pinot noir and drown his sorrows. But guess what Bram didn’t do? He didn’t quit. He wrote Dracula instead, after work and on weekends is my guess.

    16 years! It took Michelangelo 16 years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Imagine if he snapped a pic on his mobile phone midway through and no one hit loves this and put 3 heart emojis in the comments. He might’ve given up on that project.  Heck with painting a ceiling. Maybe I’ll just binge watch Netflix for the next 8 years and let that go unfinished for eternity.

    Laura Ingalls Wilder was 65 years old when she published her first book, Little House on the Prairie. She published her last book at 76. Quite sure a grande mocha espresso from Starbucks and a doom scroll through Facebook didn’t get in her way.  She managed to push through all on her own when she didn’t think anyone would be interested in her life on a prairie.  Glad she didn’t quit.

    The list goes on and on. The point is this, screw the algorithm on social media. Let’s normalize not being defined by how many followers we have.  How many likes we get.  Yes, I like social media because it’s a way I can get my writing out, by myself, to a few people who like to read what I write.  With hope that someday, it will find its way to a bigger platform.  But you know what? I’m in no hurry. I’m not in a race for likes, follows, and shares.  I’m here to do something I enjoy. Write. Create. Dream.

    Maybe it’s time for a notebook, a pen, and a candle, well, or maybe not that extreme, but it’s definitely time to remind myself that there’s no such thing as an overnight sensation.  It’s ok to take my time and just keep doing what I enjoy.  Thanks to all those before me for paving the way that it’s not about how many likes one gets, but it’s about the joy in doing what gives you purpose.

     

    Mona Lisa, may have never been finished

  • The hardest part…

    The hardest part is doing it.  The hardest part is saying I’m going to do it and not doing it.  The hardest part is watching my dream disappear.  The hardest part is getting started again. The hardest part is looking at a blank screen and having nothing come to me.  The hardest part is not wanting to stop but to keep going and hope I nail it just one time.  It just takes that one time.  At least that’s what I hear.  I hear stopping isn’t the answer.  I hear ‘write what you know’.  I hear ‘you write so well’.  I hear ‘I enjoy reading what you write’.  I hear ‘you really have a way of capturing an emotion into words’ – I hear a voice in my head, constantly, telling me don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.

    I guess if something is easy, then maybe it’s not meant to be, if something is effortless then what’s the point of bothering, although those both sound pretty good to me.  Writing is hard and writing takes effort, at least for me, at least for right now.  Stopping is easy but then the loss of my hope of being a good writer goes away, I can’t lose that hope.  Hope is all I have right now, at this moment in time and I can’t lose hope because then that really takes me to a dark place.

    Blank screen ahead, new year ahead, fire up the engines and write my heart out because at the end of the day I want to be a writer.  It’s my dream.  I have not totally found my ‘voice’ this past year, I have not totally found my niche.

    I said I would just write and see what came out of me.  So that’s what I’ll continue to do heading into 2025.  Just write.  If I found everything I was looking for in the past 8 months, I don’t think I’ve paid my dues as a writer, I don’t think I got it just yet.  I have learned that a writer works every day at their craft.  A writer works 24/7 trying to think of what to write about.  Today I am writing about writing.  Today I am writing to tell everyone who reads this to keep hoping and dreaming about what it is they are good at, they want to do, how they want to leave their mark in this world.  Today is a new day and it’s the first day of the rest of my hopeful, dream filled life.  Join me, add your dream and get started at whatever it may be that makes you want to get up every day.  I have not failed, I have not succeeded, I have started and I will keep going.

    Keep going!

  • Ho Ho…Hum

    My screenplay for my Hallmark Holiday movie would be a little different than what I’ve seen lately.  There would be no perfectly wrapped presents under a perfectly decorated tree, there would be no main man character dressed in a cozy sweater and skinny jeans greeting me at the door with a cup of hot cocoa, there would be no carriage rides through a snow lined street, no bundled up Christmas carolers showing up at my door…

    My (almost) 60 year old lady perfect “Hallmark” movie would go a bit more like this – the main man character will show up at the door to greet me after my long day at work in camouflage cargo shorts and a Star Wars t-shirt with a full-size bottle of advil.  I’ll put up a small tree that doubles as a nightlight in the living room so when I’m up in the middle of the night to pee, I may or may not step in the latest pile of cat puke left by my grouchy holiday cat.  I may or may not fit into the same holiday sweater I wore last year, but I will shake it out and put it on for work the day of the pot luck get-together.  The next few weeks in my movie until Christmas Day will fly by.  Bits of shopping here, bits of Christmas music there.  I’ll sit down on Christmas Eve, look around at what was December, salvage a few moments of peace and let it all sink in.  The holiday has dropped in on me and I’ll hope that I’ve found some smattering of joy in it yet again.

    …and as far as I’m concerned, Die Hard will forever be a Christmas movie.  So let’s settle in for the night, scroll around on one of the many movie platforms, find the one where I don’t have to rent or buy it to watch it and cheers to the month of December as only this older lady cares to…in her Nightmare Before Christmas pj bottoms, a fleece from 20 years ago that’s still holding strong, hot tea and bring on that advil.  These ‘perfect’ Hallmark movie characters have aged to know it will come and it will go, most of all finding health & happiness at the end of the month is really all they could ask for.

    The End.

  • Holiday spirit

    So, what is holiday spirit?  It’s a feeling I believe.  I can’t remember the last time I truly felt the spirit of any holiday – the 2 big ones are coming up and I’m sitting here stumped on what to buy people and that seems like I’m missing the point, yet again.  Many years ago, in the 1970s my Dad would take us 3 girls to the 5 & 10 store, I believe it was called Greens  – he had each of us pick out something for Mom.  It wasn’t about the cost of the item, it was just that we picked it out for her – sorry about the sponges Mom, but I vaguely remember one of us getting you a pretty wreath pin.  Regardless of what we gave you, you were grateful and appreciative – if I could bottle up your reaction to how that made me feel way back then, I might start to slowly build spirit back into my holiday.

    Then there were years in middle school that we exchanged with our friends, real simple gifts, yes, the lifesaver book would usually land on my desk in one of my classrooms, the clip on koala bear sometimes found its way to my home, ribbon barrettes, toe socks, candy cane pen, stickers, cards from friends with just their signature, Peanuts come to mind and Ziggy.  I got on the bus with a little bag full of treats, filled with excitement that we were about to be on Christmas break.  Lazy days, no alarm, family and friends coming over at random times with cookies and gossip.  If I could bottle that feeling, I might just find some more holiday spirit start circling my orbit.

    Fast forward to my first serious boyfriend, who is now my husband – seeing him come over with Snuggle the Bear and Scoundrel perfume by Revlon, yeah, it’s a gift, it’s materialistic, but it was just a small something and my eyes lit up, my heart felt a warmth inside.  This was a boy and he was giving me a real Christmas present.  I think I need to recapture that moment in time and put that in a bottle of spirit to carry around with me also.

    So my spirit toolbox is starting to come alive – I have a grateful, appreciative Mom in there, I have a Dad who wanted to see his wife smile and his daughters feel good that they were part of making that happen. I have friends from middle school in there and now I have a boyfriend in there.  Guess what eventually goes in there?  An engagement, and now 2 children of my own who had many elementary school holiday boutiques where they got to buy reasonably priced gifts for their Mom & Dad – every year my husband got a small toolbox, every year he smiled so big when he received that gift.  I received several small ceramic heart shaped jewelry boxes with “Mom” proudly written on the top.  I’m hoping my children felt as good as I know I did when I was able to give my Mom her gift that I chose specially for her.  Kids, if you are reading this, guess what?  I was really happy!  That feeling is now also going in my spirit bank as well.

    Years are suddenly passing more quickly.  I want to cherish and savor these holidays as they go by in a blink.  I don’t want to rush all over and go broke, watch December turn quickly into January and sit there with a pile of credit card debt and no warmth in my heart.  I am making a promise to myself this upcoming holiday to savor the season.  Find spirit in the simplest of moments.  If I get a little lost along the way, I’ll cue up some Nat King Cole, make a hot cocoa, call a friend for some good old fashioned gossip and bake a batch of some yummy cookies so I can smell that familiar smell from many years ago in my childhood home on Christmas break week.

    Who knows, maybe my husband just might walk through the door with a teddy bear and a perfume from CVS, well, because I think that’d be pretty nostalgic and it just might be time to pick up some lifesaver books for my coworkers!

    May your holiday season be simple, peaceful, a little crazy, but most of all my wish for you is that you can build your own spirit toolbox of your best memories that fill your heart with warmth and a glow that makes it one for the memories for years to come. 

    Christmas, 1970s

  • Strength comes from the weakest moments

    Emotions are really wild – I had planned to write a piece about hurricanes, but it’s flipped and I’m going to go with emotions to start – basically because I’ve felt every emotion possible to a human in the past week due to a hurricane.  Today is what would’ve been my Mom & Dad’s 66th wedding anniversary.  So, I did what every good daughter does, I called my Mom and I cried to my 90 year old Mom about work and being tired.  We talked, then we changed the subject 3 more times, because that’s a given when on the phone with Mom, and we ended up laughing.  I just called my Mom and cried.  I needed every second of that phone call and then I cried again when I told her I’m lucky to be calling and crying to her.  I didn’t want to upset her, but well, I’m a Scorpio, there are years and times I’ve held in emotions, then there’s the one minute that they just all come out, and well, there you have it.  Thanks Mom.

    Now, for what it’s worth, anyone in the mood to hear about hurricanes?  Well, hurricanes and emotions and zodiac signs and full moons, just all get pretty wild I guess.  I evacuated my manufactured home.  We were very lucky to have stayed with great friends  — more on great friends another time because that in itself is worth an entire post.  I can’t sum that up in one sentence here.  We rode out the storm with talking about everything from ancestry to favorite baseball teams and how hard it is find good pizza in Florida!  We lost power for 4 ½ days.  The unknown of when will it come back wreaks another kind of havoc with just wanting the feeling of normalcy.  It’s unfamiliar, its uncomfortable. Grateful, yet again, for one of many wonderful neighbors in our community who let us plug into his generator saving our ‘fridge and having hot coffee each morning.  Grateful for all those who worked endlessly to restore our power in a relatively short time overall.  I saw my son twice, each time helping us out, bringing us emergency supplies he was smart enough to stock up on, us, not so smart – we are working on that for next time.  I watched a neighborhood grieve at losses of carports, roofs, lanai’s – I watched a neighborhood go above and beyond to help each other.  Um, yeah, to say I’m  not getting teared up again right now, that would be a lie.  I watched people put food at the end of their driveways, just because some feeling of normalcy and food were comfort.  I watched organizations drive through with megaphones yelling “hot meals”.  I cried, again.  Humanity stepped up.  Kindness showed it’s ultimate place in my world.

    Emotions and hurricanes are just going to be a continued part of life for me.  I’ll ride them out to the best of my ability and take from them everything I can — resiliency, happiness, sadness, uncertainty, darkness, light, hopelessness, hopefulness, weakness, strength, endless kindness of others. 

    Hurricanes are the ultimate in stirring up debris, emotions will forever do their part to stir up life.

    Ft Lauderdale, FL 1983